Xipe Totec

(pencil on paper, 18x18 cm, wooden frame). The flayed Aztec god, after a British Museum artefact. Xipe Totec (Nahuatl: "Our Lord the Flayed One") was a major Mesoamerican deity central to Aztec religion and agriculture. He represented the cycle of life, death, and rebirth, specifically overseeing the transition of the seasons and the germination of maize. Statues often show "double lips" and "crescent-shaped" eye slits, representing the victim's skin mask over the god's own face.